Framework Limitations

When one says they are "open-minded," how open-minded can they actually be? We shape our perception of things based on experiences, influences from our family and friends, and even instincts based on our personality. We have a framework that not even the most open-minded person can step out of; we are locked in what we know, in what we want to think. This does not mean that we are not capable of becoming aware of the limitations of our framework, or even adjusting perspective to have a wider lens. But ultimately, we shape our lives and specifically our choices around our own individual frameworks, letting these experiences, influences, and personality instincts control the paths of our existence as humans.

These frameworks are not all bad, and they are also happening sometimes in our sub-conscious. Some, however, have led to a mass destruction of species on Earth, even of our own species. In Sven Lindqvist's work "Exterminate All the Brutes," he mentions the influence that perception through specific frameworks have had on our history, especially when encountering cultures different to what is already known. He specifically talks about the European opinions that European's are superior to indigenous cultures, and therefore allowed access to power that is not originally theirs. Charles White, a doctor from Manchester wrote in a text that "the European stands above all other races" and continues to describe the "perfect" features of Europeans and their "large" brain (100-101). This idea that one race could be superior to another was popular from the time colonization began up until a more recent history.

As history shows, Europeans took it upon themselves to rid the world of what they thought to be were lesser races by "clearing the inferior races off earth," and moving to "exterminate such sections of mankind" (8). They believed that these people had no more purpose on earth, and as the great European race expanded, certain races needed to be eliminated. Many people found theories to support this, or else ridicule this notion. Charles Lyell had no intention to do indigenous peoples any harm, but did come up with the idea that throughout time, species have eliminated other species in order to create a defense or maintain "balance":

 "We human beings... have no reason to feel guilty because our progress exterminates animals and plants. In our defense, we can state that when we conquer the earth and defend our occupations by force, we are only doing what all species in nature do. Every species that has spread over a large area has in a similar way reduced or wholly eradicated other species and has to defend itself by fighting against intruding plants and and animals. If 'the most insignificant and diminutive species... have each slaughtered their thousands, why should not we, the lords of creation, do the same?'" (117)

In Lyell's view, however inhumane it may be, it is "natural" for us to exterminate other species so we can then blossom, because "man was a part of nature and in nature even destruction is natural" (117). This idea of what "natural" is, is purely a piece of a greater framework used to convince that such behavior of humans on humans is just. What is "natural"? Each person defines this differently, defining it to best fit their interpretation of what "natural" should be, could be, and is.

Throughout the painful history of the slaughter of indigenous peoples by the European sword, the general population took years to question the behavior and wonder why it was necessary to kill these other, older races. The European framework, as a whole, has shifted since the era of the Great Dying and the massacres that followed, but the lens through which a European person might look back on this history will always be affected by the experiences they have had, what has been taught to them, said to them. It has been shaped by the traditions of their country, the influences of their media, and the biases of their friends and family. Any person can view this history as they want to, and this is something that has not changed throughout history

Although negative consequences may result, this does not mean that a framework is bad, nor is it necessarily good. We cannot completely step out of our frame, but we can attempt to become aware that such a frame exists, and that other frameworks may be just as good, or equally as bad, as what we believe.